The Greatest Joke (According to Kumail Nanjiani)

A string and his friends walk into a bar, and the string goes up to get a drink and the bartender says, "We don't serve strings here." So the string ties himself in a loop and does up the top of his head and then goes up to the bar, and the bartender goes, "Uh . . . are you a string?" And the string goes, "No, I'm a frayed knot." —KUMAIL NANJIANI

ABOUT THE COMEDIAN: "Hey guys," Kumail Nanjiani says, grabbing the mic in front of a roomful of fellow comedians. "I'm trying to do a joke. I have the microphone." He pauses. "Am I trying to do crowd work? I mean, this could not be more awkward." Nanjiani, who currently stars on Silicon Valley and is taping the second season of Comedy Central's The Meltdown with Jonah and Kumail, has a solid reason for selecting his joke. "I wanted to do this joke because it's the first one that I remember that made me laugh really hard," he explains. "Everyone knows this joke. I heard it when I was a little kid and it blew my mind."

For Nanjiani, a joke needs to be surprising to work. "You can't see the punchline coming. And if you're talking about a joke that a comedian does I want it to be something that no one but that comedian can do, something unique to them and their voice. The jokes I like the most are the ones I don't think I could do and only that person can do. If you're a comedian you think about jokes so much so I like it when I can't see them coming."

Nanjiani has been busy balancing his stand-up and acting careers, but he also makes time for a weekly podcast calledThe X-Files Files, which discusses the sci-fi show. The comedian is elated that Fox recently announced a limited-run return of the series and has a secret hope of scoring a role. "As soon as I heard that I called my agent and I was like, 'Hey this is priority number one.' Fuck everything else. I don't know if I will get on it, but I'm going to audition or whatever it takes. The worst case is that I get on the show and I'm the worst part of the show and everyone hates me and I ruin X-Files, which is a very narcissistic way of looking at it."